Not catching the difference? Maui is an island, one of the loveliest places on the planet—and probably fortunate it’s such a long flight from the U.S. mainland or else no one with good taste would vacation anywhere else.

Maui is the Maui Invitational, the college basketball tournament that somehow manages to be both extravagant and quaint at once. The field almost annually is loaded with heavyweight teams with huge brand recognition. And it’s true against this year. Sort of.

As we compile this special holiday tournament edition of our regular week in preview column, we can tell you this week that Maui might be the place to be, but Maui is not. This year, the place to be is Paradise Island, the Bahamas, where the field in the Battle 4 Atlantis represents the most intriguingly competitive basketball tournament we will see until the conferences begin their single-eliminations in March.

Maui has No. 11 North Carolina, but only one other ranked team (No. 25 Texas) and one receiving votes (No. 33 Marquette).

Obviously the polls aren’t the best long-term means of evaluating team strength, but at this time of the season, with few having any measurable achievements, the degree of expectation is about all we have to go on.

And we expect a very entertaining week in these tournaments (all times ET):

Semifinal we’d love to see: Ah, who are we kidding? That Loyola-ORU game really isn’t bad, and the championship game could be compelling, but there’s no semifinal on paper that would cause one to turn off better games elsewhere.

Having covered the Shootout twice, I can say each was a tremendous experience—even with 25 inches of snow one year and sub-zero temperatures the second time around. But the people were phenomenal hosts. Such a shame what has happened to this tournament. It’s obvious why people prefer Maui, but there is only room for eight in that field.